1. Field
Example embodiments relate to selectively modified nanoporous structures for a biomimetic membrane and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Aquaporin, a type of proteins embedded in the cell membrane, plays a role of plumbing systems and selective water channels for cells. In its structure, aquaporin includes NPA domains having a hydrophobic loop including an asparagine-proline-alanine (NPA) motif and hydrophilic aromatic/arginine (ar/R) domains disposed on both terminal ends of the hydrophobic region. Bio-membranes including the aquaporin proteins show water permeability higher than what may be achieved by the simple diffusion mechanism. Accordingly, there have been many attempts to provide biomimetic membranes by using the aquaporin proteins, for example, various membrane structures prepared by incorporating the aquaporin proteins into a lipid bilayer membrane.
Structures including nanopores have been subjected to modification on their pore surfaces and applied to many fields, for example, various analyses or separating membranes. For example, there has been an attempt to form a single nanopore in the silica support and modify the pore surface with amino silane or silanol for using the modified structure for analysis, e.g., DNA detection. In addition, there has been an attempt to functionalize the nano-pores as synthesized in order to impart to them biomimetic properties.
However, most of such techniques are related to the modification on the pore surface with a single type of molecules on the entire internal surface of the nanopore. Accordingly, current techniques for modifying the nanopores may hardly provide a structure (e.g., aquaporin), wherein the structure has a nanopore and the internal surface of the pore has both hydrophilic domains and hydrophobic domains in a single channel. In particular, selectively modifying the inner surface of the pore has been relatively difficult.